A principal objective of this invention is to provide a system for inspecting contact lenses. Prior to the present invention, optical components such as contact lenses were often inspected manually with the use of a projection-type device such as an optical comparator. Manual inspection systems requiring human intervention are not practical for high-speed production because they are too slow, because human inspectors are prone to making biased judgments, and because inspection results among different inspectors are not uniform.
A principal obstacle to automatic inspection has been the inability to produce high contrast images of optical components, such as contact lenses, so that features such as cuts, edges, scratches, tears and chips could be readily detected and measured. In particular, it has been difficult to obtain high contrast images of entire optical components. As used here, the term "features" includes both beneficial features such as certain topographical characteristics of toric lenses and lens boundaries, as well as detrimental features such as scratches, tears and chips.
The principal difficulty in obtaining high contrast images of optical components such as contact lenses and eyeglasses is that they are transparent. Moreover, in the case of certain optical components, such as hydrated contact lenses called "hydrogels" which must remain immersed in a fluid such as a saline solution, the production of high contrast images involves a further complication. That is, the refractive indices for the optical component and the liquid solution may be so similar that boundaries between the two are nearly invisible. Images of the optical component are therefore of low contrast.
Another difficulty in examining hydrogels is that they cannot be kept in a fixed position during examination and will move distances greater than the size of a small feature. Therefore, it is important to obtain a high contrast image of an entire hydrogel so that an image can be captured by an imaging system in a fraction of a second.
Another problem sought to be overcome by the present invention concerns the problem of holding an optical component in position for inspection without human intervention. Indeed, in an automated system it may be critical to have a positioning device that is actually part of the optical system used to illuminate the optical component during the automated inspection.
Japanese Patent Publication No. 55 134 339 (Oct. 20, 1980) relates to a lens inspection system for measuring the power of a lens by forming a slit image of the lens being inspected. This system is not capable of forming an image of the entire lens so that its features can be inspected.
Japanese Patent Publication No. 57 190 246 (Nov. 22, 1982) relates to a system for detecting defects in the power characteristics of an optical component. The lens to be inspected is mechanically scanned by inclining a mirror so that light scans the lens. However this system, like that of the previous paragraph is incapable of forming an image of the entire lens being inspected.
Applied Optics, vol. 18, No. 22, (Nov. 15, 1979), pages 3866-3871 relates to a system for measuring spherical aberrations in a lens. The light of this system first passes through a collimator lens and then through a pinhole array, which, of course, defocuses the light, making it unsuitable for forming a high contrast image of as optical component to be inspected.